What is the 'hardest' sport at the professional level?

MLB baseball.

Crossfit...But only because you're in a constant state of exhaustion from talking about how you do crossfit...

Highest paid = highest incentive = hardest to achieve success

Your welcome.

wrestling (olympic/Greco-Roman, not fake WWE)

there is no money in it, and the training and the sport itself is absolutely brutal and only gets worse as you increase in skill

+1 for cycling.

NBA hoops. Not many can make it...and even scrubs get paid $5-10M/year.

pitcher

boxer

wrestling seems rough

Realism wrote:

wrestling (olympic/Greco-Roman, not fake WWE)

there is no money in it, and the training and the sport itself is absolutely brutal and only gets worse as you increase in skill

No money = not professional

moron that later wrote:

No money = not professional

there is obviously SOME money in it moron, just not enough to realistically sustain most people on its own, similar to track. go fellate yourself

Having trouble with the ribbing?

Looks like they pussified the sport.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Pro_Wrestling

The rules were similar to freestyle wrestling but were modified to encourage risk and intensity. The goal is to dominate the opponent and pin his shoulders to the mat. This is called a fall. Points are also awarded during the six minute match for controlling the opponent, placing him in danger, or escaping the opponent's control. If there is no fall, then the wrestler with the most points wins the match. Some of the most noticeable changes were as follows:

1.Two 3-minute periods instead of 3 periods totaling 7 minutes

2.If a wrestler pushed his opponent out of the ring he would get a point.

3.The Bonus - if a wrestler manages to stay in the center of the mat and stay aggressive, their bonus meter would go up. If they got the bonus, they would get to go into a special position in which they couldn't lose any points and could gain points by throwing their opponents.

4.TV Challenge - the coach of each wrestler is allowed once per individual match to challenge a call made by the Ref using video from multiple video angles.

Realism wrote:

wrestling (olympic/Greco-Roman, not fake WWE)

there is no money in it, and the training and the sport itself is absolutely brutal and only gets worse as you increase in skill

"Fake" WWE is harder than "real" wrestling.

Hardest "sport" if it counts.

Average wrestler fights year round, multiple times a week. It's not special effects. Outcomes might be predetermined, but they take real abuse.

This is not CGI:

Not fake MLB. 95% of MLB players are doped. It's fake.

Either baseball or cycling.

Hitting a major league curve is no joke. Neither is a elite training schedule.

Very few good athletes can make it playing basketball. But they don't take the beating other sports dish out.

Football, mixed martial arts, pro wrestling, and boxing can leave you brain damaged and crippled.

Some other sports can requires years of unpaid training and sacrifice to end up not making it.

It's all been done wrote:

Hitting a major league curve is no joke.

Yep... Jim Thorpe found that one out. All the athleticism in the world couldn't help him.

NFL football

you have to be an amazing athlete and you get rocked by other freaks of nature

people often exaggerate claiming that every NFL player is 350 pounds and all muscle, thats simply not possible.

But the ones who really mess people up are the 240 pound Linebackers who are indeed jacked and who can run 4.5 40s/sub 11 100m at their size.

Soccer, hands down. Literally billions play the game, unlike any of the other sports mentioned. Those who rise to the highest levels have outcompeted far more challengers, by orders of magnitude.

American football. You are getting hit on a regular basis. Potential for brain damage is reasonably high